Saws for cutting harder materials such as concrete, brick or stone are available in different types and in different configurations. Such saws are available both as saws supported on a frame and as handheld or portable saws. These general types of saws are available both as circular saws using circular hard metal or diamond blades, as chain saws having a traditional type of saw chain of metal links on which diamond equipped cutting segments are supported and as wire saws using a wire or cable that runs unsupported between support wheels and that at regular distances carries cutting elements. Of the known saws, the circular saws in general have a restricted cutting depth and, e.g. when employed for forming an opening in concrete, produce a normally unacceptable, considerable excessive cutting or sawing. Chain saws having a saw chain of interconnected metal links do on their side involve a high cutting element cost. Due to their design the wire saws are in principle only possible to use for unsupported or “floating” cutting, i.e. without any underlying guide in the form of a guide bar or the like. Furthermore, it is virtually impossible to replace individual worn out cutting elements on the saw wire, which leads to a relatively high operating cost.
Our own WO 98/32578 describes a new type of saw for cutting harder materials. According to this document, a wire saw is briefly combined with a guide bar that resembles the guide bar of a power chain saw and a cutting member is employed that is intended for use in handheld or portable concrete saws and that has cutting element carriers being “floatingly” supported on a steel wire, i.e. supported for restricted axial movement. This new type of saw has several advantages when compared to the traditional saws. To sum up, these advantages consist in that it is possible to successfully combine the continuous cutting element carrier support of the chain saws with the more flexible and cheaper cutting members of the wire saws. With the illustrated cutting member design the operating cost may also be significantly lowered due to the fact that the “floatingly” supported cutting element carriers may be replaced relatively easily when individual of them are damaged. Although the described, by us developed cutting/sawing equipment has resulted in significant improvements in this technical field and is very attractive in many respects, general requests are made for functional improvements and measures for eliminating other weaknesses, above all from a durability and safety point of view, that exist by virtually all types of saws for the indicated areas of application.